The World Bank - Working for a world free of poverty

Exploring the interactions among public opinion, governance, and the public sphere

About us

Welcome

"People, Spaces, Deliberation" was launched in 2008 by the Communication for Governance and Accountability Program (CommGAP) and is now published by the External Affairs Operational Communication of the World Bank. The blog is edited by Sina Odugbemi and Diana Chung.
Learn More>>

Blog

Weekly Wire: the Global Forum

Submitted by Kalliope Kokolis on Thu, 02/09/2012 - 10:13

These are some of the views and reports relevant to our readers that caught our attention this week.


OECD Observer
Don’t forget corruption


“The crisis should not divert attention from the fight against corruption.  Mark Pieth, Chair of the OECD Working Group on Bribery, talks to Lyndon Thompson about the need to keep the ball rolling.


Mark Pieth is the affable, soft-spoken chair of the OECD Working Group on Bribery. He has held the post for more than 20 years, during which time he also served on the committee charged with investigating the Iraq Oil-for- Food Programme and the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, headquartered at the OECD in Paris, and most recently as an advisor on the Integrity Board of the World Bank.”  READ MORE

Watching People As They Walk

Submitted by Sina Odugbemi on Wed, 02/08/2012 - 10:39

If you have ever spent time on any major campus, you will be familiar with what I am about to describe. The architects of the campus will usually have laid out paved walkways for pedestrians to use as they move from one building to the other. These prescribed walkways are designed to protect the carefully maintained lawns that major campuses also tend to have, urging pedestrians to refrain from walking on the often gorgeously manicured lawns. If you are familiar with campuses, you also know that people tend to ignore the prescribed walkways. They move around the campus in ways that makes sense to them, even if that means carving ugly footpaths through carefully gardened lawns. The controllers of the environment try to forbid the use of footpaths, but they usually give up after a while. Hence, part of the story of a well-used campus is the network of footpaths, distinct from paved walkways, that sprouts over the years…and remains well-trodden with a stubborn, almost riotous, insistence.

The Future of Education: Amazon or an eBay Model?

Submitted by Tanya Gupta, co-authors: Abir Qasem on Tue, 02/07/2012 - 11:19

In a Washington Post article that Dr. Qasem and I wrote entitled “The Arab Spring of Higher Education,” we spoke of the Amazon model and the eBay model of higher education. Here we elaborate on these two models and talk about what education will look like in the future.


First, let’s look at some US trends in higher education:



  1. Tuition costs are becoming increasingly unaffordable for college students.  President Obama in his Michigan address asked colleges to think of ways to make education cheaper and more accessible.  Large capital investments and fixed costs make it difficult for colleges to cut their expenses drastically

  2. College degrees are unaffordable for many and even so, do not guarantee a job.  There is a demand for many prospective students is to learn materials and skills that would help them get a job

  3. Free availability of multimedia tools, broadband access, differentiated student base, demand for flexibility and modularized education, and technologically empowered end-users has created an environment where a demand for 24/7 education can be fulfilled by individuals or groups of individuals

Quote of the Week: Adolfo Perez Esquivel

Submitted by Uwimana Basaninyenzi on Mon, 02/06/2012 - 10:25

“The social order we seek is not a utopia. It is a world where political life is understood in terms of active participation by the governors and the governed in the realization of the common good.”


Adolfo Pérez Esquivel


1980 Nobel Peace Prize Winner


Excerpt from Nobel Peace Prize Speech

Weekly Wire: the Global Forum

Submitted by Kalliope Kokolis on Thu, 02/02/2012 - 10:46

These are some of the views and reports relevant to our readers that caught our attention this week.


One
The African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance – you better take it seriously!


“In three weeks, the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance will enter into force. The Charter was adopted by the African Union (AU) five years ago. Now that fifteen member states have ratified it, the Charter becomes legally binding and operational. Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria and Cameroon were the 13th, 14thand 15th countries to ratify the Charter. Why should we bother about this document? A Charter that was ratified in majority by countries that don’t lead by example in terms of good governance; a Charter that might be just another paper tiger without any teeths; one of a range of legal documents that don’t change anything about the real lives of African citizens?


Not quite.


The African Charter actually doesn’t contain many new elements. But, much more important, it summarizes and reconfirms existing African engagements on good governance that the continent’s leaders have taken over the last thirty years or so. And the Charter takes them a step further, in operationalizing their implementation. So instead of adding to the pile, it tries to rationalize the African good governance architecture and improve its translation into reality.” READ MORE

Is Media Freedom at the Heart of Media Development?

Submitted by Anne-Katrin Arnold on Wed, 02/01/2012 - 10:59

What’s media assistance about anyway? Actually, there’s not really a straightforward answer to this question. I realized that when I listened to Daniel Kaufmann of the Brookings Institute earlier this week at an event hosted by the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) and Internews. Kaufmann’s answer was that media assistance is about media freedom. A free media is a necessary, although not a sufficient condition for successful media development.

The New Advocates

Submitted by Maya Brahmam on Tue, 01/31/2012 - 10:15

Today, or so the conventional wisdom goes, if you have a compelling issue and a laptop, you can influence people and win hearts and minds in the process. Hence the rise of online advocates, such as Change.org, who run campaigns for groups like Amnesty International for a fee. See the related article in the Washington Post. In Change.org’s case, the general public can create online petitions for free and get help and visibility for their campaigns.


Change.org was originally conceived as a nonprofit, but now it and other companies with a social purpose, e.g., Patagonia Inc., are part of a new and emerging group of “benefit corporations.” What are these corporations and how will they affect us in the future?

Quote of the Week: Robert B. Zoellick

Submitted by Uwimana Basaninyenzi on Mon, 01/30/2012 - 09:38

“If we’re sitting here six months from now and the Italian public says enough’s enough, then what happens to Europe?”


Robert B. Zoellick


President, The World Bank


Quoted in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Davos, January 26, 2012

Weekly Wire: the Global Forum

Submitted by Kalliope Kokolis on Thu, 01/26/2012 - 13:11

These are some of the views and reports relevant to our readers that caught our attention this week.


Freedom House
Freedom in the World 2012: The Arab Uprisings and Their Global Repercussions


"The political uprisings that have swept the Arab world over the past year represent the most significant challenge to authoritarian rule since the collapse of Soviet communism, according to Freedom in the World 2012, the latest edition of Freedom House’s annual global survey of political rights and civil liberties. Yet even as the Arab Spring triggered unprecedented progress in some countries, it also provoked a harsh and sometimes murderous reaction, with many leaders scrambling to suppress real or potential threats to their rule. The repercussions of this backlash have been felt across the Middle East, as well as in China, Eurasia, and Africa.


A total of 26 countries registered net declines in 2011, and only 12 showed overall improvement, marking the sixth consecutive year in which countries with declines outnumbered those with improvements. While the Middle East and North Africa experienced the most significant gains—concentrated largely in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya—it also suffered the most declines, with a list of worsening countries that includes Bahrain, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Syria and Saudi Arabia, two countries at the forefront of the violent reaction to the Arab Spring, fell from already low positions to the survey’s worst-possible ratings." READ MORE

Morocco: When Governance, Transparency, Integrity, Accountability, & Public Procurement Entered the Constitution

Submitted by Laurence Folliot Lalliot on Wed, 01/25/2012 - 14:51

This post originally appeared on Voices & Views: Middle East & North Africa


Although many events from the Middle East and North Africa region have enjoyed large press coverage and headlines, one has remained, to date, a rather well-kept secret: the inclusion of governance and a dedicated provision on Public Procurement in the new Moroccan Constitution, adopted by referendum on July 1, 2011. In doing so, Morocco has joined the very small list of countries (i.e., South Africa and the Philippines) to grant a constitutional status to this rather technical field, the impact of which will be progressively felt in the world (even outside the small world of procurement lawyers), as it affects how government money is converted into goods and works like roads, schools, vaccines, etc.